Valentine’s Day
Every day is a good opportunity for showing your feelings to your beloved one. But in the course of the year there is one day on which people across the world concentrate on their feelings and cherish love in a special way. This is what makes February 14 a day like no other. In other words, Valentine’s Day is a festival of love and affection.
The history of this holiday originates in ancient Roman times. Originally it was a festival of fertility, called Lupercalia. Later, with the onset of Christianity, it was replaced by a holiday dedicated to St. Valentine, a popular bishop of Rome and a martyr.
The figure of St. Valentine is associated with certain legends which try to explain the origins of today’s Valentine’s Day. One of them tells about the saint as an advocate of love and young people willing to be with their beloved ones. He is famous for helping young lovers secretly get married in the times when marriage was forbidden by law. Unfortunately, his actions were discovered and he was captured. Eventually he was executed, but just before the execution he managed to send a farewell note to a girl he had befriended. The ending of the note read “From your Valentine”, a phrase which is continued to be used on today’s Valentine cards.
In fact, St. Valentine is said to have sent the first Valentine card ever. Today, exchanging Valentine cards is probably the most popular tradition of St. Valentine’s Day. People send them to their sweethearts to tell them about their feelings. The cards are used as a symbol to represent love and affection. Nowadays, Valentine’s Day is not only about expressing your feelings towards your lover, but it also concentrates on all the other people that are close to you. Contrary to the past when love notes were exchanged between lovers only, today it is very appropriate to give a Valentine card to your parents, sister, brother, a close friend, and everybody else that you care for. Of course, St. Valentine’s Day traditionally continues to be associated with romantic love and intimate relationships.